RELATED:
Ethics plaintiffs may have to pay for defense
-- Venice Gondolier Sun, 02/11/05
Calamaras under fire
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 01/06/05
Shane Saputo Congratulates the mayor
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 01/14/05

Where are my hipwaders?
Well, according to J.J. Andrews article in the February 11 Gondo (which you may want to read for explanatory background), the city isn't going to sue former council and mayoral candidate Gary Anderson because they inadvertently let 30 days lapse and didn't inform the Ethics Commission within that 30 days of their intent to sue. Mayor Dean Calamaras is mad as hell, or so it seems.

You need hip waders to get through this river of sewage. Not Andrews' article, he's reporting accurately -- I mean the posing by Calamaras that Andrews is writing about.

We, as the public, are asked to believe that in the year-and-a-half that it took this case to finally get before the Ethics Commission, nobody at city hall knew about the 30-day filing deadline. This in spite of the fact that Jim Myers went to a seminar on the subject and spoke about it shortly before retiring from council. Myers left documents outlining the litigation process in the city council's offices for the purpose of council, mayoral and city attorney review only a few short months ago. Myers, who was well aware of pending ethics complaints at the time, specifically spoke about the prospect of suing someone who had filed ethics complaints, and he was specifically laying out a roadmap on how to go about it should any ethics complaints be tossed by the Ethics Commission.

"Mr. Myers offered a brief outline of the Florida Ethics Commission Conference held recently in Tampa, and pointed out information on the issue available in council office, noting a recourse available in cases of frivolous ethics complaints."
-- minutes, City Council meeting of 10/12/04

Then we are also expected to believe that City Attorney Bob Anderson dropped the ball when he never noticed this tiny little rule about a 30-day window for nearly a year and a half, and that he let one get by. One that the mayor and council were researching and planning months well in advance. In effect, we are told that Bob Anderson is an idiot and that's why the city can't sue Gary Anderson.

Meanwhile, Mayor Dean Calamaras gets to froth at the mouth about the injustice of it all.

Let me sum up my feelings in one word: bullcrap!

For starters, Bob Anderson is no idiot. Somebody is an idiot, though, for thinking that the public would be idiotic enough to buy into this idiocy, but that idiot ain't Bob Anderson.

Court was never an option
There is no way Calamaras wanted this baby to go to court for the very reasons laid out in an article that I wrote last month (and for which Calamaras threatened to sue me). I would suggest that the clock was run out deliberately to avoid a court case that could only hurt Calamaras and not help him. Not to mention the fact that it appears unlikely that the Ethics Commission would have greenlighted any of these particular complaints for a civil court backlash.

This is more about posing and posturing: Calamaras is probably scared to death that someone will refile the ethics complaint based on the fact that his account to council about the 2002 fireworks negotiations and his account to the Ethics Commission are two wildly different stories. As a result, we get this self-serving quote in the Gondo from Calamaras: "The charges should never have been brought, they should've been thrown out. They were done with no other intent other than to harass and try to discredit us. ... Gary Anderson shouldn't get a free ride."

The accompanying chest-pounding and pseudo-gorilla yells were possibly impressive as hell, but I kinda doubt it.

Something that the mayor either deliberately overlooks or doesn't readily understand is that no charges were ever brought against Calamaras and crew. Complaints were filed, investigations were done (a set of rather incredibly sloppy ones at that) and the Ethics Commission decided not to file any charges. The Ethics Commission did exactly what Calamaras is complaining that they didn't do -- they threw the complaints out before any charges were brought. Calamaras, as a lawmaker, ought to understand these important distinctions: Gary Anderson cannot file charges, that is the commission's function. Anderson can only file a complaint (it's similar to the criminal procedure in local courts where police never file charges, they file complaints -- the State Attorney's Office is the only entity that can file charges).

As to the considered lawsuit against Gary Anderson, again, it's all bullcrap -- smoke and mirrors. If Calamaras and the city had really wanted to sue Gary Anderson, the legal papers would have started flowing the day after the Ethics Commission's ruling. What Calamaras won't admit is that his case might possibly have had some legs if he hadn't screwed it up by telling different stories to city council and to the Ethics Commission. The initial complaint against Calamaras was admittedly weak and probably ill-advised as there is no specific prohibition against what he was accused of. He stood on fairly strong legs right up until the moment when he started changing his story.

Thus, Calamaras took a potentially winnable case and screwed himself, which leads to the possibility that he may end up in front of the Ethics Commission again -- not for the original complaint but for the stories he told surrounding the events in the complaint.

And that must have Calamaras more than a tad nervous. Hence the chest-pounding. To Gary Anderson, the message is clear: you walk this time, but next time I will pound your worthless body into a mound of hamburger, you hear me boy?

Running a bluff
The city has been running a big bluff against its citizens with regards to complaints to the Ethics Commission. The bluff is that if someone files a complaint against a city official and that complaint (for whatever reason) does not end up going against the official, then the city can sue the person who filed the complaint for a reimbursement of legal fees. The implication was that the city could do this in every instance when the Ethics Commission ruled in favor of the city official named in the complaint.

This means you are taking a gamble, a big one, if you ever get mad enough to file a complaint with the Ethics Commission. No matter how right you may be, if the commission flakes out and drops the ball, you are a human dartboard, which is exactly how Gary Anderson felt.

The problem, it turns out, is that it's not exactly true. Stupid me, I believed the city for the longest time. So did a lot of people.

As I now understand it, if you make stuff up and file a frivolous complaint with reckless disregard of the truth, yeah, the city can come after you, but only after the Ethics Commission has given a green light to potential litigation by ruling that the complaint filed was frivolous or reckless. And even then, the city has to ask the commission to make such a determination within 30 days of the Commission's final determination of the complaint.

If you are telling the truth to the best of your knowledge and you can back it up, you are pretty well immune. Which is why the city can't sue Gary Anderson.

Gary Anderson was truthful in his complaints, nobody has ever disputed the underlying factual basis for his complaints. The Ethics Commission did find probable cause to start an investigation based on preliminary inquiries into the complaints. In their final ruling, they never ruled that Gary Anderson's complaints were untruthful or without merit. They did rule in favor of the city officials, although on surrounding factual grounds that have been and still are disputed by Gary Anderson, Herb Levine, Roy Stout (the latter two are executive board members of the Venice Taxpayers League) and in articles that have appeared on this web site.

Hell, I'm tempted to refile the sucker after reading this posturing from Calamaras in the paper. In order for the city to sue me, it would have to be proven that the complaint I would file is frivolous, negligent, etc. I think lying to council and/or the Ethics Commission is hardly frivolous, and I caught Calamaras cold at it.

The only purpose of all of this posing is political terrorism of the lowest order: if anyone ever dare try this again, we will pound them. We are in charge, do not attempt to mess with us.

Such terror tactics do not work in the long run. They'll keep people quiet for a while, but eventually enough folks get angry and they strike back, and when they do, there's a piling on effect that takes place as more and more join the angry mob. Former city manager George Hunt learned this the hard way.

Apparently Calamaras wasn't taking notes.

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.